May 14, 2014

The Dallas Cowboys had no need for Texas A&M quarterback Johnny Manziel in 2014 NFL Draft because Tony Romo is progressing ahead of schedule in his rehab from surgery to repair a herniated disk in his back.

But while Romo remains limited in what he can do in the off season program and the Cowboys up coming minicamps, vice-president Stephen Jones said the team has no doubt he will full cleared for the start of training camp in July and be ready to go for the season opener against the San Francisco 49ers at AT&T Stadium Sept. 7.

“Yes he will and he’s actually progressing great,” Jones said during a conference call with season ticket holders on Tuesday. “He’s on schedule if not ahead of schedule. He’s throwing the ball around, we not only think he’ll be ready for opening week, he’ll start up at training camp and be ready to go."

Jones reiterated that the Cowboys continue to have a lot of faith in Romo. He believes they would have made the playoffs last season if he hadn't missed the season finale against the Eagles because of the back surgery. Getting Romo back and healthy was more important to the Cowboys getting to the playoffs next year than drafting Manziel, Jones said.“We all feel Johnny Manziel is a great football player," Jones said. "We got a great quarterback in Tony Romo, who I think is ready to take the next big step. Get him hot and get us in the playoffs and anything can happen.”

Just CHILL: Give the Cowboys Draft a "B" but Lawrence's development will be true tell

The real story of the Cowboys 2014 draft won't be told for a couple of years. Only then when will we get a chance to see how the players the Cowboys drafted panned out as well those they passed on _ with Texas A&M quarterback Johnny Manziel at the top of the watch list in Cleveland.

But we can judge them now on their performance of the weekend in terms of the players, the value and filling needs.

PLAYERS: B

Zack Martin will be a walk-in starter and provide immediate help. He was a consensus top-16 player. Demarcus Lawrence was the pass-rusher the Cowboys felt they had to have. Anthony Hitchens may not be a household name, but he was very productive in college at Iowa and receiver Devon Street has the potential to be a big-time playmaker.

VALUE: D

The Cowboys have been criticized and rightly so for giving up too much to get Lawrence. For a team with as many needs as they have sacrificing a third-round pick was a hefty price. He better be worth it. Hitchens was also considered a reach in the fourth round. Other draft pundits had him as a possible seventh-round pick.

NEEDS: A

The Cowboys had a clear vision for what they wanted to achieve. Defense, especially the defensive line was the top priority. They had hoped to attack the defense in the first round but when all their targets were gone, they opted for the best available player in Martin, who also filled a secondary need in the draft. They then went heavy defense with seven of their final eight picks. They took five front-seven players. Street filled a huge need at receiver, giving the Cowboys an outside option behind starters Dez Bryant and Terrance Williams.

BOTTOM LINE: This draft will be determined by how well Lawrence does. The Cowboys needed immediate pass-rush help and identified him as the only player left who could do that, sacrificing a potential starter in the third round to get him. There was already pressure on him having to replace DeMarcus Ware. Now this. Will he be up to the task?

The only new quarterbacks on the roster are Brandon Weeden, drafted by the Cleveland Browns in the first round two years ago, veteran backup Caleb Hanie and undrafted free agent Dustin Vaughan of West Texas A&M, signed after the draft in part to help with the rookie mini-camp this weekend.

Coach Jason Garrett said the Cowboys know some teams like to draft a quarterback every year and develop them, either for themselves or to trade. But he said the Cowboys would rather take a player who can contribute much sooner.

“There’s been a theory around the league that teams like Green Bay, for years, always took a guy late, and if that player developed into something, that was a good thing for their team or to trade to somebody else,” Garrett said Saturday after the Cowboys completed a draft of nine players, two on offense, seven on defense. “And there are some examples of them doing that. And that’s a philosophy a lot of teams, they agree with that. But when you have other issues on your team, I think it becomes a little bit of a luxury to do that when you feel good about your starter and you feel good about your backups. We feel like it’s better to take a position player or a guy we know can contribute on special teams instead of trying to develop that guy.”

The Cowboys have drafted only five quarterbacks since Jerry Jones bought the team – Troy Aikman with the first pick of the first round in 1989, Bill Musgrave in the fourth round in 1991, Quincy Carter in the second round in 2001 and Stephen McGee in the fourth round in 2009.

May 11, 2014

Executive vice president Stephen Jones said the Cowboys were aiming to get younger and improve the defense during the three-day draft that netted nine players, and he is optimistic that happened.

“No question,” he said, asked if the team improved itself. “We are younger. We are better. We will have over 30 players, between our draft picks and our free agents, that’s one-third of our team drafted or signed over the last three days.”

Jones said the organization believed it needed to get younger and wants to see what it has in its newest players.

“We feel like, hey, we need to get younger,” he said. “We need to give some young guys a chance to show.”

The Cowboys selected seven defensive players in the group of nine, going so far as to trade a third-round pick for the chance to move up 13 spots in the second round and select defensive end Demarcus Lawrence of Boise State.

“We weren’t opposed to helping the offense, but obviously our bent when we came into the draft was to help the defense, and I think obviously, we took a lot of picks and did well there, and I think we got (defensive coodinator) Rod (Marinelli) a lot of defensive linemen to work with and a couple of linebackers there that we think that can really help us out, and actually got a secondary guy. We're pleased.”

Owner Jerry Jones gave assistant director of player personnel Will McClay an "A" for his work as the leader of the Cowboys draft war room. And not just work over the last three days during the 2014 NFL Draft but every thing he has done leading up to the draft in terms of organization of the scouts and coaches, putting the draft board together and getting everybody on the same page.

"I give him an A," Jones said. "I really do _ in every phase of it, preparation, the organizing of it. From organizing the initial days, from the Senior Bowl all the way to the combine, the organization of the board, coordination with the coaches – I’m going over all that because I’ll break it down – and I couldn’t give him anything but an A in every respect. We all know how smart he is, but he’s got a unique perspective. He’s been around this game long enough. It really came to bear in that room. He made a significant, really a significant contribution to this being a success."

McClay replaced Tom Ciskowski as the team's personnel czar last summer because of his success with street free agents the past few years. This was the first time he has directed the draft and Jones was more than pleased, especially with his ability to bring everybody together and on the same page.

"That may be his best trait," Jones said. "He’s got great people skills. Everybody’s comfortable with him, but yet he’s real articulate. You understand clearly what he’s asking and what he’d like to get done. You put all that together and he did a great job. He had these coaches operating full bore as far as what they were doing, what he wanted of them. He coordinated. Here with our new coordinator as an example, Jason really wanted him to spend time working, studying, studying our offense. So he had to work in with our offensive guys and really defense, too, with Rod Marinelli actually taking more responsibility. Their scouting duties really had to be coordinated with coaching duties in the off season. He did a great job of that."

McClay, who joined the Cowboys organization as coach of the now defunct Dallas Desperados of the Arena Football League, has come a long way from his indoor-game roots.

Now he is on the fast tract to potentially geing a general manager one day _ especially considering he is not only the highest ranking African American in the Cowboys organization but the highest ranking official in the player personnel department without the last name of Jones.

If he continues to have success in his new role he will certainly be sought after by other teams and is already on the short list of general manager candidates put out by the Fritz Pollard Alliance when they forward names to team to comply with the Rooney Rule.

May 10, 2014

The Cowboys considered Michael Sam a “tweener” who didn’t quite fit either as an outside linebacker or a defensive end for them, but owner Jerry Jones said he is glad the openly gay player was drafted.

“I was happy for him, and I was happy to see him drafted,” Jones said. “I don’t know what that means, but I was happy to see him drafted because it just shouldn’t be an issue. It shouldn’t be an issue that we made of that.”

Jones said he didn’t think Sam would be drafted so late, but that even if he hadn’t been, he would have shown competitiveness as an undrafted free agent.

“I know he has that kind of competitiveness, and I’m sure he has that kind of spirit,” Jones said. “I’m sure he would have gone in there and just showed everybody that he was capable of being a player in the NFL just like the other people that aren’t drafted would get on these teams and show that they’re part of the NFL. That would have been a great story as well.”

Jerry Jones said the Cowboys drafted Iowa linebacker Anthony Hitchens because he can step in for middle linebacker Sean Lee if needed.

“We saw a guy who could run with size, and we saw one of the few inside linebackers that we thought could come in here and help us if we lost Sean Lee,” the Cowboys owner said. “So we saw a guy who could definitely improve us from where we were last year when we lost Sean Lee.”

Lee missed five games last year because of a leg and neck injuries and 10 games two years ago because of a broken toe.

Jones felt so compelled to find a backup for Lee that the Cowboys used a fourth-round pick for a player rated as a sixth- or seventh-round pick by many evaluators.

“With all due respect to the other evaluators, I would say that there is a lot of difference in a lot of players when you start getting in that fourth round, between this player or that player and whether we would have taken him,” Jones said. “We literally had him – as we’d been sitting there all day long – we had him there, too. We didn’t have him there in the third, we had him there in the fourth. We sat there all day long with him as one of the guys that we would use our fourth pick with at that time. I’d say that’s the difference in the eye of the beholder. He was productive.

“I think the other thing is that he can play some weak linebacker. He’s obviously got the power and the other thing I can say about him is that he did a good job of dropping back in pass routes. I’m not saying he’s Sean Lee, but he can drop back and get back and as Jason would tell you, we’re going to do a better job of doing that and playing the ball up in front of us. What he did do in his collegiate career is a real good job of getting back and getting in lanes. So that’s what we saw and is just right what we need.”

Stephen Jones said the Cowboys were prepared to trade back into the third round for an offensive lineman, but that their target was taken a few picks before they were ready.

“We had a neat little deal set up,” he said. “It was going to be a nice pick for us, too, if it would have worked out. It’s probably not fair to share, but it was something that was real close.”

Jones said the Cowboys would have traded a future pick, not a 2013 pick.

Five linemen went in the last 12 picks of the third round. They were guard Chris Watt to the Chargers, guard Trai Turner to the Panthers, guard Brandon Linder to the Jaguars, tackle Michael Schofield to the Broncos and tackle Brandon Thomas to the 49ers.

“We got the rug pulled out from us about two picks away at the bottom of the third,” Jones said.